


i love you (oh how devastating those words become)

by Pls_go_away



Category: Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Angst, Gen, Heavy Angst, Hurt No Comfort, M/M, Sapnap and Bad are mentioned along with a few other characters, This is really sad, im sorry?, onesided pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-27
Updated: 2021-01-27
Packaged: 2021-03-13 05:08:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29023242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pls_go_away/pseuds/Pls_go_away
Summary: The statement “falling in love” is a peculiar one. People describe the feeling as all sorts of pleasant things, from butterflies in your stomach to a giddy feeling in your chest, and yet the feeling of falling is quite the opposite. Falling is losing control, having the air sucked from your lungs by the whipping wind, struggling against a foe that you cannot touch, cannot fight.
Relationships: Clay | Dream/GeorgeNotFound (Video Blogging RPF), onesided - Relationship
Comments: 5
Kudos: 12





	i love you (oh how devastating those words become)

**Author's Note:**

> This is loosely based on the song i love you by Billie Eilish. Like the vibe of that song also applies to this story.  
> Thank you to [hdnprplflwrs](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hdnprplflwrs/pseuds/hdnprplflwrs) for being such a great beta once again! :D

Most people say that falling in love is like butterflies in your stomach or a warm feeling blossoming in your chest. That the moment of realisation brings with it a giddy feeling, like electricity dancing through your veins. That you feel like the whole world could stop turning and you would be ok if only that person kept looking at you. But I disagree. For me, falling in love is a sickening culmination of joy and guilt and sickeningly sweet emotion. The moment of realisation bringing a feeling of dread and a fear of the inevitable crashing and burning that would follow. Oh, my veins danced with electricity, but it scorched and burned as much as it sang with buzzing energy. 

Because my love, this horrible, devastatingly beautiful love, only brought me hurt. So I kept it to myself, even when it hurt, even when my lips burned with the desire to say those three simple words. And it was a difficult task, with the playful flirting between friends. Each “I love you” burning like acid in my heart because it would never mean what I wanted it to, would never be what my heart and lungs and my whole being longed for. 

The acid of those words, joking when I wished they were sincere and the burning of my lips and tongue as I forced out laughs and quips instead of tears, when I shot back insults rather than adoring compliments, oh, it broke me. Not all at once, but bit by bit, it ate away at me until I was barely able to keep myself from sobbing when he confessed his love to me through pixel flowers and jesting comments. Because it could never be what I wished it to be, and he would never know just how much this hurt me. 

And then it all became too much, and I slipped up, and the dread and fear sickening my stomach caught up to me as I fell from the ledge. We had been in a call for hours now and in the companionable silence, the comfortable space between friends, I became Icarus. I flew too close to the sun, too close to what I couldn’t have, and I reached, but fate is a cruel being, and no matter how much ~~you~~ I want, how much ~~you~~ I long, things will always be just out of reach. And then I was falling, down, down, down, to the churning waters below, where I could never return to the sky. 

With three simple words, my world came crashing down, crumbling beyond repair, never to be rebuilt. 

“I love you”

And the words were like poison in my mouth, sweet and bitter at the same time. Because I had spent so long hiding myself, because it could never happen. After all, Clay would never see me in that way. Would never return what I so desperately longed for and clung to.

And as the silence turns brittle and the air stifling, nausea pools in my stomach and the crumbling slows to a halt, hanging in the air, suspended in this moment of time, this bubble of false security. And I wait for a response. But the silence stretches on, the faint static of mics crackling as my thoughts spiral. 

Finally, after minutes that stretched for eons, an awkward cough rang through the silence. The stillness of the moment broke, and my world continued crashing down.

And, oh, the words pierced my skin like knives, carving hurt and pain in beautiful patterns, bringing tears to my eyes as I sat there silently. The words of rejection, as kind and gentle as they were, hurt far worse that any physical wound one could inflict. 

The gentle words of “I’m sorry” and “it’s ok”, of “I don’t see you that way” and “better as friends”.

And god did that word, friends, burn. Like a searing brand on my bruised and battered heart. Because as much as we had tried to cling to what we had, this fall had caused a shift in the very dynamic of our relationship. This morbidly beautiful love had become what I feared that it would: a seed of distance and discomfort that would grow into a rift between us, and god did I wish that I could take it back. 

With all my heart, I wished that I had never reached for what I couldn’t have, had never even dared to hope for this beautiful thing because it was beautiful, after all, and the universe had long decided that I did not deserve things of beauty. 

And after the words needed to settle this disruption were said and our empty promises of things staying the same were given, he left the call and I lay alone on my bed, the world spiraling with my thoughts as tears fell from my eyes. I let the electricity of this love rush through me again, let it scorch and burn and sting, let it wash over me as I accepted that I had failed, had fallen, had let the illusion that my hope painted wash over my eyes and blind me from the truth. And now I’m left alone with the consequences and regrets, this pain and this bitter sweet taste in my mouth. 

And life, ever impartial to the suffering of men, moves on. The earth still turns, and our streams and recordings continue, and an effort to return to how we were before is made; inevitably, the cracks grow wider, growing into chasms. The relationship between us grows strained as forced conversions replace easy banter and hastily ended calls and tension filled air lodge themselves in the spaces left behind by long departed companionable silence.

And I try so hard to reach out, to fix what I caused, but the truth is still laid bare between us like an open wound and no matter how hard we try, it can’t go ignored. And for weeks, we keep it between us, acting as if things are still normal around everyone else like they’ve always been, but alone, it’s like looking at a reflection of Clay in a distorted mirror. I knew him so well, almost as well as I knew myself. Looking at him now, there’s something different and I feel as if I no longer know him at all, even though it’s the same person I’ve always known. The features are twisted and strange and I drown in the suffocating feeling of no longer knowing what was once a simple fact of my life.

Clay was always there. Clay was the person I could turn to with anything, and I was the same to him. But this strange reflection of what we once were holds nothing of that wordless trust. Instead it’s built on strained words, of hands clinging to an ever fraying rope, of two people dancing on paper thin ice and waiting for the inevitable end but clinging so tightly to what once was. 

But it’s far too late to repair this relationship. After all, the wax on my wings has melted and I’ve fallen to the icy waves below. The sea and earth and sky are just as unforgiving as life is impartial. To take flight again, to return to what once was, would be a miracle, and the gods are not merciful, no matter what humans may hope. 

So the ice we stand on cracks and crumbles, and the strain of our relationship is no longer something we can hide. This tension between us bleeds into every interaction we have, and almost insidiously, becomes noticeable. 

And I dread the day that Nick or Darryl will ask what happened between me and Clay. But the day never comes. And I know they must have noticed something happened; after all, Twitter has long since noticed and run rampant with theories. And I can’t stand to look at it any more. But Nick and Darryl never say a word, whether from their own judgment or private words from Clay. 

As welcome as the lack of prying questions are, it still stings to see them stand by and watch as the ice beneath me and Clay finally crumbles and we are plunged into the freezing water and torn apart. 

It stings like gravel on soft flesh, like the biting of frozen metal on a bare hand. And our lives move on. We talk less and less, join each other on streams and in videos once in a blue moon rather than our previous daily and even then, only in groups, where there are others to fill the stifling silence and awkward interactions, to buffer attention and words. And the others try to fill the space left behind by this split, but this isn’t something that can be repaired or replaced. 

And the world spins on, leaving me with a shattered heart and traces of lightning burned into my soul. Because this love is not something that can simply leave or be brushed aside. It has settled itself deep within me and I will hold it with me for the rest of my life. And Clay, Clay is free from this lingering taste of cyanide, this acid searing his soul. 

It is not to say that he carries nothing from this. After all, he can’t hide everything, even if we no longer hold the closeness we once had. There is guilt in the lilt of his voice when I join calls, as there is in mine. But Clay is not the one who caused this. That was me, with this double edged blade I call love. 

As we move on and our content and our lives run parallel paths, I find myself staring at my screen, at a blinking cursor and a dated message that grows further into the past with each second that ticks by. 

And I spend countless hours writing paragraphs before deleting them, attempting to make one last effort to reach out, to repair this bridge even though it’s long crumbled to dust, because I can’t make myself let go, can’t force myself to move on. And each time, I return to an empty message and a blinking cursor, because deep down I know that I should move on, that I shouldn’t linger here on what was never destined to happen. Because I can’t bring myself to burden Clay any further. Because I’ve already torn this relationship apart. 

But still I keep coming back, I keep clinging to this illusion of hope because the finality of letting this go, of moving on from Clay and everything that I once was so close to having, isn’t even fathomable in my mind. 

And I continue with this cycle, with this game of almost but not really, of pouring my heart into paragraphs of apologies and confessions and lies, and of never hitting send. 

Time creeps on, the seasons change and everyone moves on and yet things stay the same. Nick and Darryl still talk and laugh with me. I still spend time with others, with Phil and Wilbur, still humor the children, letting Tommy and Tubbo involve me in bits and jokes. And mercifully, no one mentions Clay. This game of pretending, of acting that nothing has happened and that this is how it always has been eats at me, scratching with razor sharp claws, and I suffer the pain because I’ve tried everything else and nothing has worked. 

And the, I’m reminded of the cruelness of reality, of the hatred the world must hold for me. Because Nick slipped up and told me that Clay is going on another date with someone. And the moment the comment left his lips, he cursed and hurriedly left the call, but the damage was done. My heart, shattered and barely pieced together, crumbled to nothing. I knew that this would happen eventually, that Clay would move on and live. And he deserves to, but that doesn’t make the piercing pain in my chest and the nausea simmering in my stomach any better.

And I know that I shouldn’t, that I have held out for so long and Clay doesn’t deserve this. This time when I write a message, I hesitate, staring at the blinking cursor and the words written in that box. 

“I love you, and I wish with all of my heart that I had never fallen for you, that I had never told you, that I hadn’t caused this. Because I can’t live without you because your absence is like missing an organ, like drowning whilst surrounded by air. I can’t move on. I need you in my life. I need you here, to confide in, to laugh with, to trust. I need your stupid jokes and your wheezes and your everything. And I’m sorry, I’m so so sorry that I dared to love you, that I couldn’t be content with what we had, that I reached for what I couldn’t have, that I was Icarus. Because you’re Apollo. Beautiful, regal Apollo. And it is well known that the gods hold no mercy for humans. So I don’t know what I expected. But I needed you, and I still do.”

And as the acid burns in my veins and tears sting my eyes, I click send despite knowing that I shouldn’t, that this isn’t what Clay deserves, that I have to move on, I can’t hold Clay back from living his life just because I can’t move on with mine. Yet, I was never good at doing what was right. If I was, my world would have never crumbled.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! :DD


End file.
